A Canadian journalist is defending his decision to travel the U.S. in blackface and write a book about racism, after facing a storm of criticism online.
“Last summer, I disguised myself as a Black man and traveled throughout the United States to document how racism persists in American society,” Sam Forster, who is white, posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. “Writing Seven Shoulders was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done as a journalist.”
The reaction was swift and brutal, with X users expressing anger, amusement and confusion, and telling Forster he should have simply spoken to Black people to understand their experiences.
“It’s hard to simultaneously draw the ire of black people, white people, conservatives, AND liberals… But I think you’ve just done it,” rapper and podcaster Zuby replied on X.
I came here to reference this book as well. It was required reading back in my elementary school (in the early '90s) and, as a white American male, opened my eyes to racism for the first time. I still have my original copy of the book; my school made us purchase a copy so we could highlight passages, take notes in the margins, then have our own personal copy to keep forever so we had a quick reference to grab. This was, of course, before the days of the Internet, so if you needed a reference, you had to go to the library and search for a book.